Les détails de l'événement
Le 9 novembre 2004 à 19h
Ciné-Club
Film: Les Invasions Barbares de Denys Arcand.
Sur invitation seulement.
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“Les invasion des Barbares” – Backgrounder on the Canadian health care system

Gradually socialized between 1964-1972, the Canadian health care system stands out as the only national health care system in the world that outlaws the private provision of health services in its entirety. “The Canada Health Act”, the most important federal law on public health care, regulates the rather narrow „rules of the game“ to which the Canadian provinces and territories as monopoly providers of health care have to comply. Basically, the Canadian health care system is guided by five non-negotiable principles, i.e. (1) public administration, (2) comprehensiveness, (3) universality, (4) portability and (5) accessibility. On top of that, any extra funding in the shape of user charges or extra-billing is outlawed since 1984 in order to prevent the emergence of a two-tier health care system based on the ability to pay violating the egalitarian founding principle. Any non-compliance automatically prompts a dollar-by-dollar reduction in the considerable federal transfers to the provinces, known as Canada Health and Social transfer (CHST).

For many Canadians this egalitarian approach to health care constitutes “the” defining characteristic of Canada's identity vis-à-vis the USA, which health cared system is decried as fully privatized, cut-throat capitalistic. Especially politicians invoke national sentiments in order to thwart any move towards liberalization, as they consider the very existing of the Canadian nation and thus their power position threatened. Indeed, “Patriotism [in modern times rather nationalism] is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

Unsurprisingly, Canada's attempt to override the laws of economics by political means fails. The very concept of political supremacy over economics does not tame capitalism but causes widespread human suffering as portrayed in “Les invasion des Barbares.” As another corollary, bureaucrats are elevated into the position of “playing god.” Since the raison d'etre of public health care systems is the suppression of the profit-maximization motive, or in other words, the consumers are denied to allocate their resources according to their preferences, it lies within the discretion of unaccountable bureaucrats to decree some ailments as “medically necessary service” and thus covered by public health insurance, while others not. Given the universal constraint of scarce (financial) resources, their necessarily arbitrary choice becomes literally a question of life and death.

Due to the price fixation well below the market clearing level – lower than for free is inconceivable - massive shortages in the health care system are inevitable. Canada is infamous for her long waiting lines despite being one of the most expensive health care systems worldwide, especially if adjusted for age. “Les invasion des Barbares” depicts the multi-facetted inhumane consequences of a socialized health care system, consequences that are all too often accepted as “normal” and as the necessary sacrifice of the individual to the collectivists' deity of “equality.”

References:

Fraser Institute – Health

Health Canada

David Gratzer: Code Blue